Paperweight (21 page)

Tuesday, July 22, 9:45
P.M.

WHEN I get back to Cottage Three after evening snack, there is a thin ray of light fanned out beneath my door. I frown at it. Ashley should be out, with her parents.

“Hello?” Carefully, I nudge the door open. Inside, Ashley is pacing. Lapping the room with the bunny bunched awkwardly in her fist.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” I stay close to the door.

She doesn't stop. Just marches to the closet and back. She's wearing jeans and a T-shirt and a tailored blazer. I don't recognize any of it. “I couldn't, you know? It was just, like, too much. I didn't want to stay with them again tonight.”

“Your parents?”
Duh.

She sniffs and looks up, and my breath stalls at the back of my
throat. Her face is so made up, it's almost grotesque. Caked on foundation and circular pink cheeks. Slashes of bronzer across her cheeks, as if she'd been slapped. Twice, and precisely. Her curls are exact. Crisp. The part that makes me want to cry and scream all at once are her eyes. Lined with black waxy liner, the lids filled with a bruised purple. Lashes so thick, her eyes are at half-mast. The color creeps down her cheeks, like she's melting.

“Oh my god.” It's a whisper.

“My mom, like, wanted to take me for a makeover or whatever. She thought it would be a fun girls' thing or something, and my Dad wanted to watch the game back at the hotel, so . . .” She starts pacing again, silent tears burrowing through the layers of color.

My hand shoots out, but I retract it, knowing I can't stop her.

“Come home with me,” I blurt out. “After this. You don't have to go back there, Ashley. You don't.”

She lets out a sound like she's laughing or dying. I can't tell which. “Right. You really want me coming home with you.”

“I
do
,” I say forcefully. “My dad's a nice guy, okay?”

That makes her cry harder.

“Don't,” I say, and hate myself instantly. “I mean . . .”

There's a soft knock at the door.

“Get out!” Ashley's scream is strangled.

“Do you want me . . . Should I call someone?” Cate's voice is small on the other side of the door.

Ashley's eyes go wide, so I say, “It's okay! She'll be okay.”

“Uh . . . okay?” I hear nothing, then the quiet click of the door down the hall.

“Ashley. Come here. Let's get you cleaned up, okay?”

“I'm okay. I'm okay,” she says. “Sorry. I'm okay.” She wipes her nose with the back of her hand, smearing snot across one cheek.

“No. I know,” I say gently. “Can I . . .” I reach out to touch her, but she stiffens. “Just . . . hold on a second, okay?” Kneeling next to my bed, I take my last fresh towel from the drawer. “Come on.”

She nods furiously and follows me down the hall to the bathroom. I guide her to the toilet and nudge her to the seat then rummage through my shower caddy on the sink and find everything I need.

“You'll feel better,” I promise her, which sounds like a lie even to me. I twist the sink faucet all the way to hot and dip the bunched up corner of the towel beneath the spray. Then I squirt some of my face wash on the edge, and rub the fabric together. “Here.” I lean over her, pushing her hair back, and wipe her face in slow, small circles. The colors swirl like watercolor.

“Thanks,” she says. She keeps crying.

I rinse the towel and start again, with a fresh corner.

“It wasn't . . . my parents.” Her breath is shallow. “If that's what you think.”

“Huh?”

“It wasn't my parents who did . . . that to me. The stuff on my back? It was my brother.”

“What?” I crouch in front of her. Try to meet her gaze with mine, but her eyes are everywhere, and they won't settle. “What are you—you don't have a brother.”

“Yeah, I do. I just never talk about him because it gets me too upset. He's four years older and he's always been kind of . . . messed up. My parents sent him to psychiatrists and stuff, but he wouldn't take his meds.”

I have to force myself to breathe.

“When we were little, he would hit me, and at first I thought that was a normal brother-sister kind of thing because my friends said their brothers hit them, too. But I don't think it was the same. And then when he got older and my parents would leave us alone to go out, he would wait until he thought I was asleep.” Her face crinkles up, but there are no more tears.

I don't know what to say. I have no idea what to say because when you have a brother like the brother I have—fuck,
had—
the words she's saying just don't make sense. You can't imagine, you can't possibly understand, and you know it. So you keep your mouth shut.

“And it's like, I would hear the match and smell the smoke and I wanted to scream.”

I press the cloth to her cheek, catching tears.

“But I couldn't, you know, because I think he wanted that? I think he wanted me to scream.”

I think I might be sick. “Did your parents know?”

She shakes her head, then nods. “Not for a while, I don't think. My mom walked in on me in the bathroom once, when I was like ten. And she just stared like I was some sort of freak and then she said,
you should put on lotion. I'll get you some lotion,
and then she walked out. And after that my brother was out of the house, but we never talked about it.”

“Have you seen him since?” I want to kill him. For real.

“No,” she squeaks. “But on this trip my parents keep, like, bringing him up. They're like,
so Rick's doing really well with his medication
and I'm like,
fuck Rick and his fucking medication, and fuck you for ever talking to him again.
”

“Yeah. Yes. Fuck them.”

She makes a swallowing sound and then jumps up quick, pushing me back. Then she bends over the sink. The tiny bathroom fills with the sour smell.

“It's okay,” I say quickly. “It's okay. You go back to bed, and I'll clean up.”

“Noooo,” she wails into the sink.

I find her shower caddy—purple with sparkles—and rummage through it. “Where's your toothbrush?”

“At the hotel.”

“Okay. Just put some toothpaste on your finger, then.” They don't allow mouthwash here, either. The alcoholics get desperate.

She obeys begrudgingly, like a small child at bedtime. I rinse out the sink, wipe it clean with my bath towel, and stuff the towel in the trash can. I guide her down the hall and into bed.

“Want a pill? I'll get you a pill.”

She doesn't argue, so I bring her a sleeping pill, and one for myself. She sticks out her tongue and I place the capsule on its bumpy red tip. She tilts back her head and swallows. I do the same.

I start to go back to my own bed, but she makes a whimpering sound, so I crawl in next to her with the lights still on.

“My brother hurt me,” she says.

“I know. I think you're really brave,” I say. “For telling the truth.”

“Tell me about your brother,” she says.

My eyes well up. I clench my fists around the covers.

“Please? I think it would help,” she whispers.

“His name was Joshua. He was really, just . . . good. It's hard
to explain. He died almost a year ago. In a car accident. I was in the car, too. I've always felt responsible.”

I can't say any more than that, and she doesn't ask. We lie there, one next to the other, pinned to the sheets by grief.

Wednesday, July 23, 3:26
A.M.

ASHLEY bucks in her sleep, restless and sleep talking into her pillow. After a while I leave her bed and find mine. My brain buzzes, heavy and veiled as the pill starts to creep in.

I dream about the accident, only Josh isn't there. I'm in the passenger seat, staring through the glass.

“You're just like Mom, you know that?” When I look over, it's Ashley sitting in the driver's seat. Her face is puffy, painted purple and bronze and pink. War paint.

“What are you
talking
about? Fuck you.”

“Please. Like you don't know.” She makes a wide right turn, swerving onto a deserted one-way street. “You think she just left, moved to Paris for no reason? Are you seriously that naïve?” Another turn, barreling onto the two-lane road that stretched
through the dark like a thread, stringing nameless towns together. The Buick's headlights like two white pearls, rolling fast.

“I don't know why she left!” I screamed at the windshield, clawing at the ugly cloth seats like an animal. “Nobody tells me anything!”

And then we're in the pool together, at night, our faces bobbing close. Under the water, my scar burns.

“My brother hurt me,” she whispers. Her words skip across the water like weightless pebbles.

“I know.” I glance up at the edge of the pool and Eden's there, crouched over the surface like a bird hunting prey. She laughs and dips one toe into the water.

“Haven't you ever wanted to be something . . . extraordinary?” she asks.

The Buick weaves in a seamless dance with the yellow line.

“You're the same, Stevie. You're just like Mom. A heartless slut.” Ashley sobs.

“Shut up, Josh. Shut the fuck up.”

The Buick weaves.

I scream. The whoosh of the car, airborne, a cheap aluminum toy.

Weird,
I think.

And then the screaming begins.

I bolt upright in bed, shivering and sweat-soaked. My throat is dry. I lick my lips and press them together until I taste blood and it takes a few seconds to realize that the screams haven't stopped, that they aren't mine. My hand hits something soft. The one-eared bunny. I don't remember stealing it. Not tonight.

“Ashley?” I croak. The clock says five something.

I trip out of bed and paw at the wall until the light comes on. Ashley's bed is empty. My head is stuffed and thick and it's hard to
think
so I stumble into the hall calling “whaaa” and following the screams. I pass Teagan on the hall phone, bellowing
please
again and again. She looks straight at me without seeing.

At the end of the hall, the bathroom door is open. Steam leaks out, smelling like puke and metal. Cate is crouched in the shower, the water still running, plastered slick to her skull. Cate is soaking wet, holding Ashley's head in her lap. Rocking her. Cate is screaming something, but I can't make it out. Her tube and nightshirt and ratty pink pajama pants are soaked in blood.

Jesus, there is so much blood. It runs like water.

The floor sways, and I bend at the waist, resting my hands on my knees. I taste bile.

“What did you
do
?” Cate screams. “What did you
do
?”

“What? What happened?” I should move. But I just stand there, holding the bunny while the smell of blood balloons up, pink steam rising.

Cate looks up at me, her face frozen, accusing. “Did you give her the razor? Did you—” The rest of the scream bleeds out of her, unrelenting.

And then I know: She's talking to me, not Ashley. She's talking to me.

The bathroom door slams against the wall. A team of nurses barges in, shoving me out of the way.

“Back to your rooms, girls.” A male nurse drags Cate from the shower. “Come on, honey. Let's go.”

“No! Don't you touch me!” Cate's is the horror screech of a
dying beast. It takes two nurses to hold her, one at her wrists and one at her ankles, and another to drag Ashley onto the pink tile floor that used to be white.

“Back to your room.” A nurse I've never seen before ushers me down the hall.

The hall phone is dead, hanging by its cord, nearly grazing the floor. The nurse guides me into my room. Outside the window, red lights are circling and the grounds are crawling.

“I'll send someone to sit with you, but you absolutely must stay in your room until you hear otherwise. Do you understand?” the nurse asks.

I think I nod yes, because she closes the door behind me. Somehow I drop to my knees. The drawer beneath my bed is ajar, and I know without looking, but I look anyway, once, twice, again and again, raking through everything, but I know I won't find it. The razor is gone.

The shrinks—all of them—arrive quickly, sweeping patients into deflated huddles in various places on the grounds: the villa, the houses, any of the cottages but Cottage Three. Shrink herds Cate and Teagan and me to the treatment team house. In the kitchen, breakfast is waiting on taupe-colored trays, along with two cups of supplement. No one looks at the food. Not even Shrink.

We sit on the very edge of the metal folding chairs, curled into ourselves in jeans and dirty T-shirts. I stuffed the pills from my drawer in my jeans pockets, and pulled on Josh's sweater over my tank top. After this, I know they'll scour the room for contraband. I'm thinking only of myself while Ashley's lying on some chrome
table, water still dripping from her lifeless corkscrew curls. That's the kind of evil I am.

“I know that there is nothing I can say to make this any less traumatic for you all—for us all—right now.” Shrink's voice is so low, I can hardly hear her. Her voice sounds bubbly, like she's been crying.

I told you I was worried!
I want to yell, but she didn't do this. I was the one with the razor.

“In times like this, it's incredibly important to stay grounded in the present moment.” No one's listening, not even Shrink herself.

“Is she dead?” Teagan's watery voice rises.

“As soon as I have more information, I'll let you all know.”

I slip my hands under Josh's sweatshirt, feel the reassuring ridges of the pills in my pockets. I don't look at her. I don't look at anyone. I couldn't stand it, seeing Cate's wet, red-eyed hatred or Teagan's vacant stare. The three of us know: I killed her.

“Would you all take a deep, slow breath for me? In through your nose, and out through your mouth?” Shrink breathes a cartoon breath, but no one follows. It seems cruel, breathing that deep and big when Ashley can't.

I should feel something
, I think. I rattle through Shrink's list of emotions: anger, sadness, shame. But they are nothing more than words.

Shrink's phone rings, and everyone jumps.

“I should . . .” she says, as if any of us would stop her. She pulls her cell phone from her pocket and checks the screen. “I'll be right back, girls.”

We sit in silence, Teagan sucking gobs of snot down her throat
every few seconds. I say nothing, not a thing, because I deserve this quiet hell for as long as it lasts. I wait for the blame.

“I'm sorry,” Cate whispers.

My head snaps up. “What are you talking about?”

“I should never have given you the razor. I should have thrown it out. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh my god.” Her face shrivels.

“Who gave it to you?” Teagan asks her.

Cate shakes her head. “Doesn't matter.”

“I didn't know . . . I never showed it to her,” I say desperately. “I swear, okay?”

The other girls' heads dip.

“I hid it in my underwear drawer, wrapped up tight. I don't know how she—”

“Okay, Stevie. We get it. It's not your fault.” Cate's voice is glinting.

“It's not anybody's fault.” Teagan strokes the bald spot above her ear, rubs it almost forcefully, as if she's trying to rub the memory from consciousness.

“I know,” Cate squeaks, shrill like metal on metal.

I shake my head. It's making me feel worse, what they're doing. I hate that they're carving up the blame, each girl taking a bloody, pulsing piece for herself. It belongs to me, all of it.

Shrink returns, and clears her throat behind me. She rests her hand on my shoulder, and I whimper. “I just spoke with one of Ashley's doctors. She's alive. They're . . . optimistic.”

My shoulders sag. “What does that mean,
optimistic
?”

“It means that she will live, most likely.”

Cate starts to sob, burying her face in Teagan's shoulder. I
stay stoic, unmoving. I should have known better. I thought I had changed, but I am still the girl who brings destruction wherever she goes. I am the girl who disappeared my mother and my brother and very nearly the only real friend I have ever had.

“Stevie?” Shrink's voice, too kind. “Can I see you in the other room?”

“No. No. Just . . . I want to see her.” I slide my hands beneath Josh's sweatshirt again, for reassurance. The pills are still there. My heart slows every time I touch them. “Can we go to the hospital?”

“Not today. I'm sorry.” She squeezes my shoulder.

“Then could I have my supplement, please?” I say without looking at her.

“Of course.” She disappears, then returns with the plastic cup of chalky chocolate milk.

“Thank you.”

“Stevie.” Shrink crouches down next to me. “Tell me what's going on for you.”

I could sit here, say nothing, but that won't do the trick. I have to play the game. Have to hold up the shiny black-and-white die for all to see before I cast it.

“I'm just really . . . shocked. Like, fidgety or something. I think I need to take a walk.”

“We can't leave the house right now, Stevie. Later, perhaps.”

“Anna.
Please
.” I turn in my chair and find her eyes. My desperation isn't contrived. I
am
desperate. I have to go, now. If I don't go now, if I don't do it now, I never will.

She searches my face.

“Just for a few minutes, and I'll come back. I'll go crazy in here if I have to stay.
Please.”

Her pink mouth opens, and she closes it quickly.

“We can go with her, if you want,” Cate mumbles.

“No. I want to be alone.” I take an agonizing sip of supplement.

Shrink glances at the doorway, then back to me.

“You may walk to the riding ring and back. No detours. Got it?”

I nod. “Thanks. Thank you, Anna.” I feel like I should hug her or squeeze her hand or something, because the truth is she has done a good job and she deserves the recognition. She might even have saved me, if I weren't so far gone by the time I got here.

“If you're not back in ten minutes, I send Hannah on a golf cart.” It's supposed to be a joke, but even she doesn't smile.

“Deal,” I say.

Outside it feels the same as any other day. But it's not any other day. I hold the supplement cup in one hand, and count the pills through my jeans pocket with the other. I don't know if they will be enough, but they are my only chance.

I walk quickly toward the horses. This is all wrong, every bit of it. It's supposed to be the Anniversary, not eight days before, and I'm supposed to have more time and I'm supposed to be sure that what I have is enough. For the past three hundred and fifty-seven days, I've pictured what it could be like: me, lying still between white sheets, a collection of bleached, hollow
bones arranged in perfect formation. I would stare, wide-eyed at the ceiling and everything around me would stop: the noisy chatter in my brain, the merciless pounding of my heart. My last breath would be slow. My body would shut down dutifully, one organ after another after another until it all went dark, like fluorescent lights in a vacant room. I wouldn't need pills. I could do it myself.

When I get to the ring, I scoop a handful of pills from one pocket and examine them.
I deserve
this, I tell myself.
Do it.
I picture Ashley in the shower, water running, blood flowing from the stripes on her arm.

Do it.

Mechanically, I toss my head back and pop the first handful into my mouth, chalk and plastic melting fast on my tongue. But they taste wrong in my mouth, and I realize: I don't want this. I don't.

After a few seconds I spit them out, all of them, a syrupy pink-red wad. I kick dirt over them. For the first time all morning, I feel something real: humiliation. One simple task, one crucial, simple task. And I can't do it.

“Stevie. Stevie.” The squeak of sneakers on dirt, and then Shrink's hand is on my back. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing. What are you doing here?” I kick more dirt.

“I shouldn't have let you go,” she admits. “I wasn't thinking. And then I got worried, so . . .” She looks me up and down, searching. “Everything okay?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I'm tired. I don't think I can do this anymore,” I say, not entirely sure what
this
is.

She cups my face in her hands. I can feel her fingers, strangely
cold, pressed against the side of my neck. My pulse throbs. She hugs me and I just stand there, pressed into her, stiff and embarrassed.

“I know you're tired,” she says. “I know.”